1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus and a recording method which record information signals at different recording data rates, a program for implementing the method, and a storage medium storing the program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Moving image pickup apparatus (recording and reproducing apparatuses) that record moving image data in the form of digital data onto randomly accessible storage media, such as magneto-optical disks, have been brought into practical use. When moving image data is recorded as digital data, the amount of data can be reduced and recording can be performed for a longer time period by compressing the data using a moving image compression method, as represented by AVI (“Audio Visual Interleaved”: a moving image format of digital moving image editing software that was developed by MICROSOFT CORPORATION of the U.S.A.) and MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group).
However, with these conventional apparatuses, when there is little free capacity for recording remaining on the storage medium but the user wishes to continue recording for a little time, the only way to extend the recording time period is to replace the recording medium, and there has been the problem that it is not possible to perform recording while the recording medium is being replaced.
To solve this problem, in the case where there is little remaining capacity for recording on the storage medium during recording, there have been proposed a method in which the recording time period is extended by overwriting old files out of the files that have already been recorded on the storage medium and a method in which an increased remaining recording capacity is secured by recompressing data of existing files at a higher compression ratio.
However, with the above proposed methods, there is a problem (first problem) that the file to be overwritten or the file to be recompressed is automatically determined, so that there are cases where contents that are important to the user are deleted or recompressed.
Further, when the user is allowed to specify the contents to be deleted or recompressed, he/she can know the recording time period and the data size of the specified contents. However, when it is possible to freely set the compression ratio for recording out of a plurality of compression ratios, it can be envisaged that the compression ratio that was used when recording contents differs from the compression ratio used for currently recording data, so that the length of time over which recording can be performed using the same data size may vary.
However, there has been no technique for knowing, from contents to be deleted, what degree of extension in recording time period can be expected by deleting the contents. For this reason, when the user deletes contents, it is necessary to know not the actual reproduction time period of the contents but how long recording can be performed at the compression ratio that is presently set, and therefore there is demand for a technique that can satisfy such requirement (second problem).